Obviously the solution is to encode success into the type system, such that functions which increase the chance Haskell will become a mainstream programming language fail to type-check.

People keep saying this as if it were meant to be parsed "(avoid success) (at all costs)", but in fact it's supposed to be "avoid (success at all costs)", in other words "principles > popularity".

I've always understood it to be, simultaneously, jokingly the former and seriously the latter.

Only if your program doesn't type-check ;)